Georgia in Anglo-Spanish Diplomacy, 1736-1739

Abstract

D ISAGREEMENT over the boundaries of Florida and Georgia was one of the causes of the Anglo-Spanish war which opened in I739. For several years preceding the conflict there had been controversy over this subject between the two nations, each adapting former treaties and accounts of discovery to suit its respective case. It would be wrong, however, to imply that this question was a prime reason for Britain and Spain going to war in i739. It was a subsidiary issue in the general pattern of international relations at that time and never figured largely in the argument between the Courts of St. James's and Madrid. Much more important was Spanish vexation at the British privilege of supplying slaves to the Spanish colonies, the asiento de negros exacted at the Peace of Utrecht in I7I3. Another grievance was the South Sea Company's practice of fraudulently overloading the one ship it was permitted to send every year to trade at Cartagena and Vera Cruz. Spain complained also of English contraband in the West Indies, of illegal logwood-cutting on the Honduras coast, and of the claimed right to collect salt in the Tortugas. For her part, Britain resented the measures taken by Spanish guarda-costas to prevent smuggling, particularly their harsh exercise of the right of search. As stories of losses and atrocities at sea multiplied, the advocates of war found a sympathetic audience. Sir Robert Walpole, however, favored a settlement of differences by negotiation, and so the years before i739 were full of claims and refutations, notes and memorials between ambassadors and ministers. Although the governments were concerned with the boundary of Georgia less than with the other causes of dispute, that problem did have a part in the discussion and it did influence the policy of each side. It was, furthermore, obviously a matter of vital significance both to the pioneers in the little colony itself and also to those philanthropic gentlemen in England to whose initiative its foundation in i732 had been due and